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Saturday, May 31, 2014

Maleficent and the Power of Pure Love

Admittedly, I am a HUGE Angelina fan, but I did in fact go into this film as an impartial viewer. If it had sucked, I would be honest and say that it did, but it did not.

Let's start with the audience--lots of children and their mom's (specifically), with smatterings of adults, mostly women, and a few men. I saw this in 3D. This is yet another film where 3D is wholly unnecessary, yet the CGI and fight scenes were great. The beauty in this film was made of CGI whimsy, and lacked the "I''m in a video game!" feel of "Avatar." Though the whimsy is short lived, and only present for a fraction of the time. This film is not only dark in tone, but in design (and with great, valid reason).

This is an origins story, told by a much older Aurora, which gives validity to the tale. Think of it as an "Ever After" type of fairy tale (with actual fairies). Maleficent, an orphan, is deemed protector of the Moors where the fairies live due to her abnormally large size. She meets a young, human boy, and eventually falls in love. Tale as old as time, right? Until said boy grows up into a power hungry man, roofies her, and disfigures her in her drug induced slumber, leaving her to walk slowly on a cane for most of the film.

Maleficent becomes bitter and enraged, appointing herself as Queen of the Moors, building her strength, then strikes when her assailant [and former love] is made a King and father. She gives him the mind-fuck of all time via a curse on his baby girl (not a spoiler). The results are instantaneous, as he sends the baby away for sixteen years, never visiting her, and never having any other children. He also abandons his wife for his obsession to destroy Maleficent, and eventually becomes Gary Busey-like in manner.

Jolie is stunning in her fairy prosthetics and devil headgear, and shows us the power of pure love as opposed to (and shown to be fabled) true love, and showing how it can change us and help us grow for the better. Also, props for having a black guy with a speaking role in this film (which is rare for fantasy/period films).